


Like the old season

by Tyelperintal



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Autumn, Fingon is bad at gifts, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25882687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyelperintal/pseuds/Tyelperintal
Summary: Findekáno and Maitimo take a walk in the woods around Mithrim as Maitimo recovers.
Relationships: Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	Like the old season

If Findekáno had been permitted, he would have spent every hour at Maitimo’s side until his cousin recovered, but of course it had been more complicated than that.

First the healers had chased him away, because the last thing they needed was another body crowding their way as they worked. Findekáno had forgiven them for it. Then six brothers had demanded to occupy the space, sometimes all at once and sometimes privately, and to what degree Maitimo had allowed them to keep him company was not Findekáno’s business to ask.

He was curious, however. He was curious, because once Maitimo had felt strong enough to speak, he had turned away from Findekáno and said with a cracked, whispering voice that he did not want Findekáno to see him like this, and that he should go.

At any rate, the needs of the rest of the Noldor hadn’t stopped because Maitimo was most damaged and hurt out of them, and so even if Findekáno had stubbornly resisted and tried to keep his post close enough to reach out and touch Maitimo’s hand if he needed comfort, there were thousands of others who needed his help too.

“He is alive,” Turukáno had said to Findekáno as he stared out over the still grey surface of the lake, his eyes equally glassy. “What more do you want?” He had said other things that were less kind, too, on some of the infrequent occasions when he felt like speaking at all.

So the months passed, and Mithrim was beginning to look less like a desperate camp of refugees and more like a real settlement. Findekáno still took his role as a prince seriously, and he had helped scout out quarries and places to log and mine, had hunted and fished, gathered herbs and planted seeds, and had every day feared that he might return from his work and hear news about Maitimo that would break his heart.

It had been broken before, more than once, but there was one final heartbreak that could yet happen.

Spring did not burst suddenly forth in the valleys, the way it had seemed to do in Valinor. It crept up like the mist; tentative outcroppings of snowdrops, then spiky crocuses reared their heads, and a few brave, slender daffodils that must have felt optimistic about the sun. But the days seemed to be getting longer, and gradually the bird songs held more variety than the croaking of ravens and eerie bleating of owls in the night.

As it was, Maitimo finally emerged from the healers’ care at the same time that the foals were taking their first wobbly steps in the fields.

By autumn, he was holding a sword again.

It seemed that each time Findekáno saw him, he looked a little stronger, his face less gaunt. His body recovered quicker than expected, although today while a crisp breeze flowed down from the mountains, the layers of velvet and fur draped over him concealed his frame. A scar had noticeably split his eyebrow and another thin scar wound around the curve of his throat, but perhaps the most visible reminder came from his cropped russet hair.

The healers had let Findekáno assist in washing, combing, and trimming the bloodstained and matted locks. If it would ever return to the waist-length waves he’d sported back in Aman, it would be years before it reached that point again.

“Are you not cold?” was the first question that Maitimo asked when he saw Findekáno. A little hesitant; brows knitted, lips parted, an expression like he wasn’t sure whether it was the right thing to say to someone.

Maybe it wasn’t. Findekáno hadn’t willingly worn furs since he set foot on solid ground rather than ice. Even when snowflakes came blowing in on heavy clouds, it didn’t feel like true cold anymore.

The question rang of concern, though, so Findekáno smiled. “I have been running around since sunrise trying to appease my father and Írissë and the Sindar ambassadors, and I broke a sweat. And now I am going to run away from them and take a walk in the woods, if you would like to come with me.”

Maitimo hesitated, grey eyes flickering. “How… far?”

“That far,” Findekáno said, and pointed to a patch of trees with orange and yellow leaves on one of the nearby hills. “I told Itarillë I would practice archery with her and her aunt, so I have to be back before sundown, but it leaves me enough time to make it there and back.”

“I would slow you down,” Maitimo replied, shaking his head.

“I should hope so. Sometimes I walk too quickly and miss the scenery.” Findekáno’s expression turned pleading. “Please? I … I miss talking to you.”

For a second, he thought he’d lost Maitimo with that request. But he watched his cousin take a deep breath, shoulders dropping on the exhale.

“I suppose it would be good for me,” he finally relented.

Findekáno did take the precaution of telling one of the sentinels where they were headed, and if they had not returned by twilight to come seek them. It was doubtful that orcs would make it so far without anyone noticing, without some kind of advance warning coming to them, but even so—caution was always advisable. Besides, there could always be other kinds of surprises on these unfamiliar shores, the likes of which no one could expect or prepare for.

But those concerns were relatively distant while the sun was breaking through the cover of clouds and trickling pleasantly through the trees, which were in various stages of turning to their autumn crowns. Red, copper, and gold spiraled down to the forest floor as Findekáno and Maitimo picked their way through the trunks, and every so often a butterfly whose wings mimicked the hue would flutter around their heads with curiosity.

There were also plenty of evergreens giving off their distinct aromas, and Findekáno breathed in deeply. He loved being around people; he was at his best in a group of friends, and being left alone too long made him feel anxious. But there was something rewarding about walking around the unmapped forests, a reminder of how much more they had to explore.

Maitimo did not walk briskly, as he had warned, but they made a fair pace, and he did seem to look appreciatively towards the change of scenery even if he made few remarks.

At one point, Findekáno paused, then knelt to pick up a stray pinecone that had tumbled off of one of the tall pines. He extended it towards Maitimo, who blinked down at it in confusion until Findekáno prompted him to take it.

“It’s for you,” Findekáno explained.

“Why?”

“Because I like it.”

“Then you ought to keep it.”

“No. I want you to have it.”

That had ended the argument for the time being. Maitimo walked with the pinecone clutched in his hand and a very, very faint smile on his face; Findekáno had done his best not to stare, even if he wanted to bask in it like a cat finding a patch of sunlight.

Barely a few minutes later, Findekáno was kneeling again, this time to retrieve a feather that was lying next to a mossy stone. Tawny, red, and grey, perhaps from an owl or a hawk.

“Take this too,” Findekáno insisted, pleased to find that Maitimo was not protesting this time.

It was not long after when he gave an excited cry and went veering off to the side to point out a cluster of mushrooms that he heard it—an odd, dry sound like crinkling paper, yet almost like a heave of exertion, and he turned around towards Maitimo to ask if he had also heard it.

Maitimo was … _laughing?_ He’d turned to the side, perhaps to try and hide it, his right arm crossed in front of his chest as if he was trying to excuse himself (or else to try and suppress the sound somehow). There was an unmistakable crease at his eyes and a dimple in his cheek, though.

Findekáno’s instinct was to laugh with him, until the realization caught up with him that the mushrooms probably were not very funny, and so Maitimo must have been laughing at _him._

But when Maitimo met his gaze again, there was something there that had been absent for a very long time. A fondness that had at best been veiled by too many layers of sorrow and remorse and anger, but it was there again, and Findekáno felt his heart swell too big for his chest.

He would have kissed him right then and there, except for the fact that his kisses hadn’t been welcomed since before Fëanáro and his sons departed for Formenos. There was little chance of one being well-received now, which Findekáno was perfectly understanding of; it had just been a thought. A submerged longing that had come up for air.

“You look like a squirrel,” Maitimo said. “All this dashing around and gathering.”

Findekáno laughed too, at that. “Well! And without me climbing a single tree yet.”

He had not uprooted the mushrooms from their posts, and so there was no pretense under which he could sneak closer to his cousin and affectionately touch the back of his hand. But he decided to throw caution to the wind and do it anyway, and Maitimo neither stepped back and away from him nor flinched at the touch.

The fond look in Maitimo’s eyes hadn’t vanished completely, but now when Findekáno looked up at him, he could see the clouds beginning to return.

 _Not yet,_ he thought. _Not yet._

He felt like one of those trees that twisted its branches into impossible shapes while trying to grab a little more light for its leaves.

Maitimo was tall enough that Findekáno had to stand forward on the tips of his toes to bring their lips together. The movement was purposefully slow so that Maitimo could put a stop to it when he wanted—Findekáno expected icy fingers to wrap around his wrist, as they had done before when Findekáno had only moved to brush a strand of hair away from his face or fix the coverlets on his bed.

But no such movement ever came, nor any pushes, and moreover, Maitimo even adjusted the angle of his head to make their lips meet more naturally.

A brief, tender kiss that seemed to go on for ages. Findekáno would have liked it to.

But he was the first to pull away when uncertainty came flooding back. Ships wreathed in flame and endless miles of ice and shadows of a depth he’d never understand still lay between them and whatever halcyon memories each of them had left to cling to. It would be better to read the kiss as a _thank you for trying_ and leave it there.

“I am not sure that comparing you to a squirrel deserved that reaction,” Maitimo said, looking more serious than he should have. But there was a touch of color in his cheeks that offset the wariness that had returned to his steely gaze. “It wasn’t even a compliment, if I am honest.”

“I know.” Findekáno smiled again. “I know, Maitimo.”

**Author's Note:**

> My Russingon fics are becoming a series of them giving each other lame gifts. If I do more I'll officially make a collection, haha. 
> 
> Title is pulled from a translated lyric from "Time of Sorrow" by Victon, if anyone wants a morose song rec.


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